Cookie Monsters

Every year around this time, we get together with my family and spend a day making a massive amount of cookies. Then we split them up between all of us and enjoy them the rest of the holiday season. Depending on how fast you eat them. And being pregnant this year might have a serious effect on the cookie disappearance rate.

Cormac had fun cutting out cookies in the shape of Christmas trees, stars, and Santas, and just dropping random lumps of dough on the cookie sheet. Because as long as it tastes good, who cares what it looks like, right? Especially if you're gonna put frosting on them anyway.

My favorite cookies are are the Coconut-Cranberry Chews. They are little balls of cranberry-orange-coconut-butter deliciousness. The recipe is from Sunset magazine. I usually double the recipe because I don't mess around when it comes to these cookies. The resulting dough barely fit in my professional grade Kitchenaide mixer, but that actually turned out to be a good thing because then I got to thoroughly sample the dough. And there are no eggs in this recipe, so thorough sampling is actually encouraged.

Coconut-Cranberry Chews

Ingredients

• About 1 1/2 cups (3/4 lb.) butter or margarine, at room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon grated orange peel
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups dried cranberries
• 1 1/2 cups sweetened flaked dried coconut

Preparation

1. In a large bowl, with a mixer on medium speed, beat 1 1/2 cups butter, sugar, orange peel, and vanilla until smooth.

2. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to butter mixture, stir to mix, then beat on low speed until dough comes together, about 5 minutes. Mix in cranberries and coconut.

3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls and place about 2 inches apart on buttered 12- by 15-inch baking sheets.

4. Bake in a 350° regular or convection oven until cookie edges just begin to brown, 8 to 11 minutes (shorter baking time will yield a chewier cookie; longer baking time will yield a crispier cookie). If baking two sheets at once in one oven, switch their positions halfway through baking. Let cookies cool on sheets for 5 minutes, then use a wide spatula to transfer to racks to cool completely

The well-meaning people at Sunset included the nutritional information for each cookie, which I have chosen not to publish here for obvious reasons. Just enjoy the cookies.

Here is a photo of our work (notice Cormac in the background):